All Souls’ Rising: A Novel of Haiti (1)

A serious historical novel that reads like a dream. –The Washington Post Book World One of the most spohisticated fictional treatments of the enduring themes of class, color, and freedom. –San Francisco Chronicle NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTPEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALIST This first installment of the epic Haitian trilogybrings to life a decisive moment in the history of race, class, and colonialism. The slave uprising in Haiti was a momentous contribution to the tide of revolution that swept over the Western world at the end of the 1700s. A brutal rebellion that strove to overturn a vicious system of slavery, the uprising successfully transformed Haiti from a European colony to the world s first Black republic. From the center of this horrific maelstrom, the heroic figure of Toussaint Louverture a loyal, literate slave andboth a devout Catholic and Vodouisant emerges as the man who will take the merciless fires of violence and vengeance and forge a revolutionary war fueled byliberty and equality. Bell assembles a kaleidoscopic portrait of this seminal movement through a tableau of characters that encompass black, white, male, female, rich, poor, free and enslaved. Pulsing with brilliant detail, All Soul s Rising provides a visceral sense of the pain, terror, confusion, and triumph of revolution.